


it's a sickness

by kallliope



Series: kanej minifics [5]
Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Sick Character, tending to the sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 02:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9857351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallliope/pseuds/kallliope
Summary: Kaz gets sick, so who takes care of him?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sick with a sore throat, so of course I'm going to make my favorite characters suffer along with me.

“Inej-” Kaz coughed, three short barks that sounded like gunfire. 

Inej ignored him and placed a wet towel on his head, careful not to let her fingers graze against his face. 

“I’m fin-”

“Tell me that when you’re not as red as Nina’s  _kefta_ , and then we’ll talk.”

Kaz rolled his eyes. “You have a warm bedside manner, Wraith.” 

“And you sound like an enraged kitten trying to hack up a hairball, but I don’t judge.” 

Kaz opened his mouth to protest, and Inej took the opportunity to shove in a spoonful of syrup for him to swallow. 

“Damn it, Ine-”

Inej’s eyes flashed and she pointed the spoon to his face in warning. “One more word out of you, Kaz, and I’ll send you over to the mediks.” 

Kaz dutifully shut up, considering Inej held the spoon as deftly as she did her knives. A tremulous silence settled over them, broken only by Kaz’s occasional coughs and Inej wetting the forehead towel in a basin in intervals.

“Why do you hate the mediks so much?”

Kaz blinked, and his mouth twisted into a flat line. “How did you get so adept at tending the sick?” 

“You wouldn’t believe how many illnesses someone can catch just from traveling across Ravka in a caravan.” Inej replied immediately, sinking down into a chair next to the bed. “My father taught me the basic instructions to tend to the sick, thought I never mastered it. Here, eat these.” 

Kaz obediently opened his mouth and chewed on the offered leaves. He knew he should answer with his own anecdote, but the very thought of mediks made his skin crawl and his mouth choke from rising water in his lungs. 

“And,” Inej hesitated, then closed her eyes. “I nursed some of the girls back to health in the Menagerie.” 

Kaz shifted on his bed to stare at Inej, the bedsheets rustling faintly. She ignored the sound, her eyelids still firmly shut. 

“Tante Heleen expected each of us to have prime healthy bodies. That enticed the customers even more, she said. Well cared for figures instead of the scrawny ones they see on the streets every day. The change excited them.” 

Inej exhaled and fluttered her eyes open to look at Kaz. “The punishment for being sick was Heleen’s abandonment.” 

“Some of them died.” Kaz stated, no question in his gravelly voice. 

Inej nodded once, her eyes flashing. “So forgive me if I seem to hover over you like a mother hen.” 

The both of them relapsed into silence for a while afterwards. 

 

* * *

 

When the candles started to die in their wax encasements, Inej stretched and began to rise from her seat. “Good night, Kaz.” 

Kaz said nothing, but as soon as Inej placed a hand on his door, he whispered, “The mediks did nothing to help us - Jordie and I. We saw them running across the streets and weaving in and out of houses, but they didn’t give us a passing glance.” 

Inej’s posture straightened and she let go of the doorknob. 

“They had frantic expressions on their faces that only grew with each passing day,” Kaz continued hoarsely. “And I thought, like the naive pigeon I was, maybe they’d come to us one day and try to save us as well. We were patients waiting for treatment; what did it matter if we slept on the streets each night?” 

Inej walked over to Kaz and stood over his bed. “Did they ever look at you?”

Kaz shook his head and started to answer, but a violent sneeze interrupted him, along with a series of coughs that wracked his body. With the barest of touches, Inej put a hand on his shoulder and leaned him backwards. His head thunked against the headboard, and he winced. 

“Your hair will survive, Kaz, now _lie down_.” 

Kaz did so, but as soon as he did, he found his gaze fixed to the cracked plaster ceiling. He opened his mouth to start again, but discovered no more words rose to his mouth. Then he saw Inej’s face appear over him, leaning over his head like an omnipotent presence. Her expression looked set and a question danced in her dark eyes, a question that Kaz answered with a single nod.

Inej carefully lowered herself to brush her lips against Kaz’s forehead for the briefest of moments. 

“Think of it this way, Kaz,” Inej murmured, drawing away. “When mediks see you now, they look away, but they can’t help but sneak glances at you all the time. You demand to be noticed.” 

Kaz bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Are you accusing me of melodrama, Inej?” 

“Took you a while to catch up.”

Inej stayed by Kaz’s bed for the whole night, and if Rotty pushed open the door and saw her asleep in her chair, holding Kaz’s ungloved hand, well. No one needed to know. 

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr: inejjghafas.tumblr.com


End file.
